Tim Meyer - The Switch House

She tried to close her eyes and blind herself to all these horrible events, but found she had zero control over that part of her face. Some unnamed force had pinned her eyelids open, compelling her to engage in the horrors before her.

It’s a dream, she thought. This is one majorly fucked-up nightmare and soon you’ll wake and this bullshit will all be over.

But the flitting horrors didn’t feel like a dream, not entirely. They appeared as real as anything she’d ever experienced.

She heard her husband scream, again. Closer this time. Real close. As if he were only ten yards away.

The haze grew thicker, devouring the last remaining shred of clarity. Flashes of lightning, those bright blinding bursts, quickened their pace, narrowing the downtime between appearances. The smell, those nose-wrenching fumes, intensified.

Through the swirling haze, she made out another figure, a man lacking a single garment. The room’s newest victim was stretched, each of his four limbs pulled taut as if about to be quartered.

The man was her husband.

“Terry!” she shouted, rushing ahead without caution.

Her husband tried to respond, but no words made it past his sewn lips. He’d been stripped naked and all of his body hair—including what little remained on the top of his head—had been shaved. She glanced down at his genitals to find them gone, replaced by an open, bleeding cavity that supplied the ground with steady droplets of dark crimson.

She screamed in horror.

Terry screamed, too. Although his eyes were glued shut, tears still leaked through, basking his face in a heavily glistening sheen. He tried to move, squirm free, but his wrists and ankles were bound by barbed wire.

She approached him slowly, her vision blurry from the gush of tears flooding her eyes.

The closer she got, the tighter the wire twisted around his flesh. The more he screamed. The more the lightning flashed and the more turbulent the room of clouds grew.

She stopped. Dropped to her knees.

“Terry?” she asked, throwing her head in her hands. “What is happening to us? What is this place?”

He shouted, but his sewn mouth trapped the words and only produced nonsense. She didn’t understand a single syllable. She cried some more, and he screamed some more.

Without warning, the black wire attached to his limbs snapped, pulling Terry apart. Each of his appendages tore free from his body and disappeared somewhere into the surrounding realm, leaving crimson torrents in its wake. Blood exploded from the fresh scarlet pits like a city fire hydrant in the dead heat of summer.

Wet crimson splashed across her face. Its warmth coated her flesh, and the sickening sensation caused her to vomit and urinate simultaneously. She screamed and screamed, and screamed some more, until—

When she removed her hands from her face, the bright early morning greeted her with open, loving arms. A square of light coming in through the kitchen window nearly blinded her. Birds chirped right outside the window, perhaps while removing pine needles and leaves from the gutter to build their late-season nests. She checked the immediate area for evidence of what she’d witnessed, but there wasn’t any—no Terry, no puddles of blood, no blue light, no active fog, nothing of the sort. Her knees felt wobbly as she pushed to her feet. When she walked, the tile floor of the kitchen shifted beneath her. She used the counter to guide herself to the other side of the room, where she lingered in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room.

How did I get here?

The last thing she remembered was wandering aimlessly in the blue fog blanketing her bedroom; now, she found herself in the kitchen, basking in the early morning sunlight. She checked her palm, the one seared by the ultra-hot doorknob. It appeared fine, her hand clean and unmarked, the skin perfect and smooth, zero evidence of her terrible ordeal ever having happened.

Holy shit, what the hell is happening to me? Angela thought as the room spun in all different directions. She felt ill. Really ill. She forgot about the floor and its shiftiness, and rushed across the kitchen toward the sink. She arrived just in time; remnants of what she had eaten the night before came back up and layered the bottom of the sink.

“Oh, God.” After she finished unloading and felt depleted of all fluids, she reached across the counter and grabbed her pills, the new prescription Dr. Wilson had filled for her. She popped a pill, poured herself a small glass of tap water, and swallowed her medicine. This better start working soon, she thought, before I lose what’s left of my sanity. She decided she’d call Abbie later and ask her how long the pills should take to work their magic. She’d taken one dose yesterday and, yet, she had just experienced the most intense delusion of this whole ordeal.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She looked down and saw her husband’s name with the word “work” next to it, the auto body shop’s number beneath them.

“Hey,” she answered.

“Hey, babe,” he said. “How’s my favorite wife?”

She swallowed and it felt like the pill she had ingested was lodged in her throat. Don’t tell him, her inner voice urged. Don’t tell him.

“I’m… I’m actually doing okay.”

“That’s great. Really great to hear.” He paused. In the background, she heard his co-workers laughing at a joke she hadn’t caught the beginning of. “No nightmares last night?”

“Um, no. Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know. I thought I heard you moving around a lot. Just wondering if you were okay.”

“Did I wake you?”

“No—I mean, yeah. Once. But it wasn’t a big deal. I went right back to sleep.” He waited as if he knew she had something to admit. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, fine.”

“You sure? You don’t sound okay?”

“I am. I just… woke up feeling a little ill.”

“Sick?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, stay home and get some rest today. Don’t leave the couch unless you need to use the bathroom or eat something.” Playfully, he said, “Husband’s orders.”

“Actually, I was thinking about taking a ride to visit my parents.”

“Really?” He sounded surprised. “Without me?”

She laughed. “Like you care. What did you call them the last time you were there? Bloodsucking gremlins?”

“That sounds about right. Look, I’m fine with it, as long as you’re truly okay. Do you think it’s a good idea, being sick and all?”

“I’m actually feeling much better already. I’m super hungry. I think I just need some breakfast and I’ll be good to go.”

“Okay, babe. Keep in touch. Drive carefully. You know the drill. Call me when you get there.” In the background, someone called Terry’s name. “Gotta go, love. Will you be home for dinner?”

“Depends. You know what long drives do to me. I’m considering staying over.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I mean, if it’s okay with you.”

Terry paused. “Yeah. It’s… it’s fine.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll hang out with the guys tonight.”

“Okay.”

“Text me, though?”

“Of course.”

“Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

She felt guilty about lying to Terry, especially during those few seconds when her parents’ exit on the Garden State Parkway zipped past, but it had to be done. She couldn’t tell him she was skipping a nice dinner and perhaps another majestic night of intimacy in favor of seeking out the old woman, the old witch whom she was pretty sure was out to kill her, or, at the very least, trying to break down what little remained of her sanity. She couldn’t tell him because he couldn’t possibly understand what she’d been through. Everything from the day it had all gone down, the moment [we do not speak his name] vanished up until her experience on the Switch!, had been pure hell. Terry didn’t bear the same burdens; therefore, he could never understand her guilt, her agony, her mental exhaustion. All that, plus, any excuse to get away from the house was a good one.